The Bible - From the Beginning to the End

All of our future hopes are laid out in the book of Revelation. Not only is Revelation the inspired Word of God, it is also the only New Testament book that includes a special blessing for those who study and apply its message. It should be an essential part of every Christian's devotional life, and those who ignore Revelation, are depriving themselves of a rich treasure of divine truth, and t...

“Faith” is a very important word in Christian life. The word is found on almost every page of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Faith is the means by which we receive everything from God. Hebrews 11:6 makes this very clear. This should be crystal clear to us. It is not difficult to please God – it is impossible to please Him! It cannot be done without faith! Without faith we can receive nothin...

The Bereans were enthusiastic Bible scholars who sought to understand God's Word and His intended way of living as believers. Paul held them in high regard because they diligently searched the Scriptures to confirm the teachings that he and Silas had shared with them. It is important to remember that back then, the only Scriptures that they had were the Old Testament, which contained promises...

The whole of the Bible is about Christ, but particularly in the Gospels and The Acts, you find Christ manifesting the character of God through a human personality. When we come to the Epistles (the “letters”) – which occupy the largest part of the New Testament – we are dealing not with preparation or fulfilment, but with explanation. The letters of the New Testament are intended to explain and ma...

We learned in the last episode of this podcast, that the Old Testament is filled with pictures of the coming Messiah. In the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Zechariah, they spoke of the Messiah as coming as the King – the King of Israel. This is what the nation of Israel had as the portrait of Christ in their minds. Secondly, there are Old Testament prophecies which speak of Messiah as the Serv...

Why did the Holy Spirit move the writers of the gospels to give us four pictures of Christ? Why not just have one? Bible scholars are always working at the task of “harmonizing” the Gospels. Sometimes you can get Bibles that have the harmonies of the Gospels contained in them. These Bibles are trying to combine these four books and turn them into one, but if the Holy Spirit had wanted one, He woul...

The prophets in the Old Testament are the expounders or “explainers” of the promises of God. What would we be without the promises of God? According to one person's count, there are 3573 promises in the Bible which are intended to be fulfilled in this life. So over three thousand promises are made for us today. How many of those have we claimed? We will now take a brief look at the final eight...

With this podcast we are beginning with the prophetic books of the Bible. These Prophetic Books contain the mighty promises of God. So, what is your definition of a promise? When a man and a woman stand at the wedding altar and promise each other, what are they doing? They are committing themselves to give of themselves to each other. A promise then, basically, is a commitment to share yourself. I...

The soul of man, in turn, is made up of three facets or parts: the emotions, the intelligence and the will. The book of Psalms records the emotional responses in man's soul to circumstances. The book of Proverbs is man's intelligence at work recording the experiences of life. In the book of Ecclesiastes the will of man is expressed.

The third section of the Old Testament – after the Pentateuch and then the historical books are the five poetical books: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. Although we call these books “poetical,” it doesn't mean that they rhyme. It means they have a structure of repeated ideas. This is the form of poetry the Hebrews used. These 5 books are marvelous books of express...

The story of the nation of Israel, the ten tribes which constituted the northern kingdom, is that of moral apostasy, the danger to a nation which gives itself over to what it supposes is liberty, disregarding what is right and just, and choosing instead to act in ways that ignored everything that God had warned them against since the Israelites had entered the Promised Land. There is one thing tha...

The story of David is perhaps the most wonderful story in the entire Bible. David was, as the Scripture puts it, a man: “after God's own heart”! David had an unwavering faith that already showed with him growing up as a boy. There was his battle with Goliath, living in the court of King Saul at the risk to his life, the story of his friendship with Jonathan, and finally being made king, first...

The historical books of the Bible give a special illustration of the perils, pressures and problems which every Christian believer will encounter, as they attempt to walk the life of faith. Each book not only shows us the perils that every believer will encounter but also the means of victory over them. These historical books of the Bible trace the history of Israel – a single nation with a specia...

History is the story of man. God is in history, but He is working behind the scenes. History is the story of man's ongoing cycle of failure, the sequence of the rise and fall of one empire and kingdom after another – over and over again! Firstly, these historical books of the Bible trace the history of a single nation with a special ministry – a representative nation – Israel. What happens to...

The book of Numbers begins at Kadesh Barnea, right at the edge of the Promised Land. When we get to the end of the book of Numbers, we are back at Kadesh-barnea again. In spite of all the wonderful instructions the Israelites had in Leviticus, and the adequate provision already given to them, entirely by God, so that they might enjoy His presence among them, when we read Numbers, we see nothing bu...

The book of Exodus contains the complete lesson of redemption. The whole book of Exodus centers around three major incidents: Firstly the Passover. Secondly the crossing of the Red Sea, and finally the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai. The first two of these, the Passover and the crossing of the Red Sea, provide a picture for us, as Christians, of the forgiveness and the freedom which God provides...

The first five books of the Old Testament – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are called the Pentateuch in Latin, which simply means "five books". They are the five books of Moses. Usually we start off very well in Genesis and then move on into Exodus, but around Leviticus, where we get into all the strange requirements of the Law, we get stuck, and we never quite get th...

We should never think of the Gospels as merely the story of the life of Jesus, with the most important part of the New Testament being the letters of Paul. Until we begin to learn who Jesus is and what He does, and then apply it our own life and heart, we could read our Bibles for years and years, and yet remain totally unchanged and untouched.

Imagine skipping the first half of any good book and then try to understand what the story is all about, in the same way, the New Testament is only completely understood when we see the foundation of all the events, and promises of the Old Testament. If you buy a murder mystery novel, and you only read the last few pages, so that you can discover who the murderer was, it will make the whole experi...

It takes the entire Bible to show us how we can become the complete expression of Jesus Christ in the world, and it takes the work of the Holy Spirit in interpreting this Scripture to us. In this podcast, we will take a quick look at how the Old Testament helps us to discover what God’s plan for humankind was since the beginning.

I was asked once if there was a single Bible passage that fully explained the purpose of the Bible and what God’s plan is for all of us. I felt that the answer could be found in Ephesians 4:11-13. Everything that God has done, and the entire focus of everything that is contained in the pages of the Bible, is aimed at one goal – and that is to mature all of us, so that the fullness of God can work...

In this podcast we come to the very end of Revelation – the final chapter – in more ways than one, and at the beginning of that chapter, we read about a river in the New Jerusalem. Here is described the life of the eternal city of Jerusalem, and it is a picture of abundant fertility, full of life. There is a river of life, and a tree of life. The tree, although also literal, is a symbol of Jesus H...

Remember that God chooses to use literal things that are symbols. The cross we see behind many pulpits is literal, but it is also a symbol of the death of Jesus. It is both literal and symbolic at the same time. So, all through Revelation, we find the blending of the literal and symbolic. Personally, I do believe there will be an actual city of incredible brilliance and glory, located somewhere ab...

Chapters 21 and 22 of Revelation contain almost everything that the Scriptures say about eternity. Most of the prophetic passages of the Old Testament, that picture a time of great blessing on earth, refer to the thousand-year reign of our Lord which precedes this last great event. Not much is said in the Old Testament about heaven. But Chapters 21 and 22 of Revelation describe heaven in detail.

Even in the most perfect moral culture that this earth will ever know, man will still love sin. Just cast your mind back to the perfect environment of the garden of Eden. At that time, there were only two people and they both chose to sin. And they did it from a state of innocence. So if Adam and Eve chose to sin from a state of innocence, what would humanity do from a state of depravity? It does...